


Off-Book

by disdonc (orphan_account)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-06-06
Packaged: 2018-01-26 20:49:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1702067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/disdonc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victoria Hand is drawn into a mess. If she wants to save someone she cares about, she'll have to walk a fine line. And keep SHIELD out of it all the while.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She nudged the door to her flat closed with her foot and dropped her satchel on the floor with a relieved sigh. Rolled her shoulder a few times. That laptop had gotten heavier lately, she could have sworn. Or maybe it was the files she’d brought home as well. She threw the mail onto the little stand and then kicked both her pumps off her feet and down the hallway.

It was their clattering echo that tipped Victoria Hand off that something wasn’t right. The apartment was dark. Not unusual – lately Hand had been getting home from work long after Grace had gone to bed but she always left the TV on or something playing on the stereo. She removed her weapon from her shoulder holster and crept into the flat proper.  

No obvious signs of a struggle, only ordinary domestic disorder. A few magazines and three of the paperbacks Grace had on the go were on the coffee table along with a glass of wine that still had an inch or two left in it.

Hand turned toward the bedroom but flinched as the phone on the desk began to ring. She crossed the room in quick strides and placed the gun down. Her hand shook briefly as she reached for the phone but she willed it to be still before answering. Victoria Hand had taken so many phone calls like this in a professional capacity. This wasn’t going to be any different.

“You didn’t harm a hair on her,” she stated by way of greeting.

“You’ve figured out the situation already. That’s good. That will make things proceed more smoothly.”

 Victoria didn’t recognize the voice but thought it had a hint of a German accent. She picked up a pencil and wrote _Male. German??_ on the notepad beside the phone.

“If you are thinking about calling any of your coworkers or employees you should know that—“

“Cut the bullshit. I don’t need to hear the ‘If you involve anyone’ spiel. Let me talk to Grace and then tell me what you want.”

The man cleared his throat.

“They told me you are very direct. Very well, one moment.”

She was startled by the sudden light jazz in her ear. Hold music. The bastards were playing her hold music. A long, long moment later the music stopped.

“Vic?”

She snapped the pencil she’d been holding.

“Sweetie, it’s going to be alright. I’m going to see you soon.”

“They haven’t hurt me. Vic, I’m sorry I forgot to set the alarm again.”

“It’s alright, sweetie. This isn’t your fault.”

“Ten seconds,” Victoria Hand heard the man say.

“They even let me bring my book.”

“Which book?”

“Catch-22. It’s really good.”

“You’ve been telling me to read it.”

There was a rustling as the man presumably took the phone back from Grace.

“You are satisfied, Ms. Hand? We can proceed?”

“I can’t give you any classified SHIELD intel. It’s a non-starter. They’d erase me long before I could deliver.”

“No, no, Ms. Hand. We’re reasonable men. We don’t need any of your precious SHIELD secrets. Just some of your contacts.”

She said nothing, waiting for him to continue.

“There was a SHIELD operation three years ago. A…cleanup of an asset in Mogadishu. I believe it was one of your ops, Ms. Hand.”

“It went south.”

“Very south. You used contractors and one of them was captured. He was a friend ours and we wish to know where he was imprisoned.”

Hand remembered the operation. A fairly inconsequential loose end she had wanted wrapped up. She couldn’t remember the details beyond SHIELD hiring a private team for expediency sake.

“His name?”

“Alain Chabat. He’s very handy. His skills are entirely wasted, rotting in prison. I’m sure the details will be in the mission report, of course.”

She added Mogadishu and the name Alain Chabat to the notepad.

“That’s it. I find you this Chabat and you release Grace?”

“As easy as pie, no?”

It was never as easy as pie. Never.

“The mainframe that houses archived mission reports is time-locked. I have no access until tomorrow and I’ll need to get it from the computer in my office.”

“You don’t seem very eager to have your very lovely friend returned to you.”

Her knuckles were turning white from clutching the handset.

“This has to happen completely above the board or SHIELD will come down on all of us like an avalanche. The exchange will happen after office hours. If I leave before 19:00 someone will be suspicious.”

“I will call you tomorrow with the details for the exchange. Good night, Ms. Hand, and you should get some sleep. Busy day tomorrow.”

“Let me speak to Grace again.”

The phone went dead.

She replaced the handset on its charger and then pounded her first onto the desk. She walked to the kitchen, poured herself half a highball of scotch and returned to the desk. After a long drink, she put the glass down and then dropped to a crouch so that she could retrieve the cellphone that was taped to the underside, just at the limits of how far she could reach.

Hand flipped it open, punched in a number and brought it to her ear. 

“It’s Hand. I require the services of a freelancer.”

She hung up. The duct tape attached to the phone stung her skin where it had clung to her face.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victoria Hand starts out on her mission.

Victoria Hand swept past the desks and cubicles, leaving behind a wake of unacknowledged good mornings. This was entirely normal behaviour for her. Once in her office, she closed the door, threw her satchel under the desk and sat down in her chair. The light on her phone indicating voicemail was already blinking and she was loathe to log into her computer and see how many emails and meeting requests awaited her.

She tapped the head of the dunking bird toy on her desk and watched it bob. A gag gift from Grace, it was also the only personal touch in her office.

Her coffee in its takeout cup had cooled to lukewarm before she had logged into her computer and called up the Chabat file. Her phone range twice while she skimmed the file. The operation had not just gone south, it had never really even got underway. A small time broker had burned a SHIELD asset, making off with a few thousand dollars and some equipment. Nothing that even rated as a rounding error in terms of Hand’s operational budget but she was not about to let it stand. A lesson had to be taught, a standard set, for anyone else SHIELD might deal with in the future.

But with no convenient teams in the area at the time, Hand had contracted out. Someone, however, had made a bit too much noise around local authorities. The entire team including, apparently, this Alain Chabat, had been arrested in Addis Ababa before they’d even finished their preparations. Victoria tied it off and eventually took care of the thief when a genuine SHIELD team was sent Eastern Africa on other business. And after that the entire affair had slipped from her mind.

She frowned at her computer screen. The people involved weren’t SHIELD employees. The only thing that tied Chabat to SHIELD was his being hired as a subcontractor on occasion. 

She picked up her phone and punched in the number for her IT guy.

“I’m going to need to book some time on a satellite. Carter P2 will suffice.”

Tom was a SHIELD employee but he was the one she called when she needed tech support.

“P2? P2 is old, ma’am. All but decommissioned at this point. Carter P4 or P5 should be available and their cameras are--”

“Carter P2 is fine. This isn’t...this isn’t a mission of consequence.”

“Understood, ma’am. I’ll have administrator control over P2 transferred to your account.”

Hand hung up the phone and took a long, deep breath and exhaled slowly.

 

She walked through the train terminal with long strides, moving in an arrow straight line despite the rush hour crowd. 

She sat down on a bench, crossed her legs and brushed her hair out of her face before folding her hands in her lap. The man sitting behind her, arms stretched out across the back of his bench said, quietly, “Agent Hand, it’s been yonkers. You look tired, I am afraid to say.”

“I’m not sure I like the shaved head look on you, Sahir.”

The man rubbed his scalp. “Too much grey coming in but I’m not quite prepared to accept it just yet. Time waits for none of us, I’m afraid.”

Hand nodded.

“I thought you had said this was a personal project. I believe I see many of your coworkers around and just like us not taking a train train.”

“But only SHIELD agents,” she agreed, “and they aren’t here on my order.”

“Tell me about what you need.”

They didn’t face each other. They just cast their gaze across the crowd. Victoria had picked out three SHIELD operatives so far. She didn’t make eye contact -- she didn’t want to make things awkward for them.

“For the moment, ops support.Sahir, someone important to me has been taken. We’re going to get her back.”

“An extraction operation will need--”

“This is a simple exchange. My person for a bit of information.”

“In my experience, these things are rarely simple. And this is not a SHIELD employee, or you’d have whole teams who specialize in this sort of affair.”

“Let’s take this one step at a time. I want you to act as my surveillance and my tech. It will be just the two of us. What are you going to need?”

 

She was almost at the street exit when Coulson stepped in front of her.

“Agent Hand, we need to talk.”

“Coulson. I’m not on the clock.”

“I heard about your furlough request. It hasn’t even got to Hill’s desk yet and you’re already meeting mysterious strangers in Union Station. I declined to have my men detain him. You’re welcome for that.”

Hand’s mouth formed into a thin line as she stared down at Coulson.

He cleared his throat, “Maybe we can discuss this not among a parade of commuters? There’s a diner across the street. Fantastic key lime pie. Victoria, you’re a high ranking SHIELD agent.”

“I can give you twenty minutes.”

 

“You’re sure you don’t want a slice? It’s heavenly.” 

He took another mouthful. The diner had been mostly empty and four glaring, uniformed SHIELD agents had been enough encouragement for the few patrons that were there to settle their bills and leave.

Victoria Hand sat across from him in the booth, her arms folded. A cup of coffee sat untouched in front of her.

Coulson continued, “We know about Grace. You knew we would know. Victoria, we can help you with this. There’s no need to go rogue on it.”

She leaned forward and placed both hands on the table. “Grace is...Grace doesn’t matter to SHIELD. Who are they going to send to get her? Romanoff? May? Hill won’t give me a major asset. All they’ll spare is a strike team who’ll charge in guns blazing. Coulson, I’m not going rogue. This is...a personal matter.”

Coulson smiled, “You don’t have to do this by yourself. You have so many resources at your disposal and--”

“I once fired my favourite assistant for stealing a toner cartridge from the office.”

“To be fair, you do go through a lot of assistants. What about borrowing Carter P2?”

Victoria shrugged. “It’s all but decommissioned.”

Coulson finished the last bit of his pie, carefully running his fork around the plate to get the last of the crumbs and whipping cream. 

He leaned back and sighed.

“Usually I like it when you’re stubborn, but then again we’re usually on the same side.”

“SHIELD doesn’t have a side in this. Four days off. And the longer you keep me here and waste my time, the longer I’ll be away.”

“Victoria...get Grace back. One day you’ll bring her to the office Christmas party. And if you do need anything--”

She cut him off with a look.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops! I wrote this chapter before rewatching The Hub and of course it's explicitly stated Coulson and Hand haven't met in person before. Oi.
> 
> Anyhow, I thought of a way this story can still fit within the AoS continuity and so I wrote The Debrief flash fic as a follow-up to repair my error :P


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victoria Hand goes to meet Grace's captors for the exchange.

They were in a rented storage unit that had been leased years ago by a fabricated identity. A fabricated identify which itself had been created by an entirely separate fabricated identity. 

Hand and Sahir were looking at the array of weapons were laid out on a table.

“You’ve accumulated quite the collection, especially for a bureaucrat,” Sahir said, hands on hips and shaking his head.

“I didn’t start off a bureaucrat.”

She pursed her lips before selecting a very large caliber handgun and tucking it into the waistband of her pants.

“Take the sniper rifle and whatever sidearm you’re comfortable with. But I want to treat this like an exchange, right up until the point when it isn’t.”

Victoria picked up another, slightly smaller handgun and clipped its holster to her belt. 

“When was the last time you were in the field, Agent Hand?”

She half-smiled. “Concerned about me?”

“I like to go into situations knowing all the variables.”

She turned to face him and folded her arms. “It’s been sometime but I don’t suspect you’ll find me too rusty. And I don’t think we are dealing with top-notch professionals here.”

Sahir rubbed his chin. “That’s worse. Amateurs are the ones mess these things up. Panic and start shooting when they don’t need to.”

“Just pick the rest of your gear and let’s get this overwith.”

 

Victoria drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. Traffic was heavy and this was their third time looping around the neighbourhood where the exchange was to take place. She almost wished she’d used her regular SHIELD driver for the night -- driving in the city was a pain in the ass and she was distracted thinking about Grace. 

“No unusual activity. It looks like a construction site,” Sahir was in the passenger seat, looking at his laptop, which was displaying the satellite view of the building where Hand’s contact said Grace was being held. The arrangement was that Hand would go to the site alone, Grace would be brought out so that she could see her and then her contact would call for Chabat’s location. Grace would be released and they would part ways.

She parked the rented sedan a block away from the site and leaned over to look at the computer screen. 

She jabbed a finger at the satellite display.

“That building should give you decent visuals.”

Sahir tapped a few keys.

“It’s an office tower. I can’t find anything that suggests they hire a regular security duty and I’ll be able to talk my way past any janitorial staff.”

He closed the laptop and stuffed it into a satchel, got out of the car and retrieved the case with the sniper rifle.

“No shooting except on my mark.”

Sahir nodded and walked off.

 

“You’re all clear. I see no hostiles. Nothing warm on the site besides you.” Sahir’s voice in her ear.

It was fifteen minutes past when her contact should have called her.

“Nothing? There should be at least one. There must be one.”

“I don’t see anyone in the building, or no one on the site aside from you.”

The building was a new multi-story tower, the first five floors were roughed in and perhaps half the windows installed. Above that, bare steel girders. If Sahir’s infrared imaging goggles could see her they were functioning correctly and were powerful enough to see into the building itself. 

She could hear Sahir on the other end of the comm channel, tapping on his laptop.

“Apparently the job site has been untouched for several weeks. A dispute between the general contractor and the investment firm.”

“I am going to go in.”

She drew her weapon and paced the outside of the building until she found a place where a window hadn’t yet been installed.

“There are lights on the fifth floor.”

Hand found the stairs and took them two at a time. She had to pause at the top and take some deep breaths.

“You’re alright?”

“Maybe it has been a long time since I’ve been in the field.” 

Most of the floor was bare framing but part of it was drywalled. Victoria saw light leaking from a closed door and walked toward it, gun raised and held in both hands. As she walked, she counted her inhales and exhales to try to calm her breathing. 

She reached toward the doorknob but paused with her hand hovering over it. Sahir had seen nothing warm on the other side. Nothing alive. When she opened it she would find either nothing, or Grace’s body. Her hand trembled and then she grit her teeth, clasped the knob and threw the door open.

Her gun was back up in an instant. There was nothing, but field instincts kicked in. She entered the room, checking her three and nine o’clock. Drywall had been hung but it wasn’t painted yet. No fixtures, the all of the light came from two work lights hung from the ceiling. Their extension cords were strung down and toward the outlets against the wall. At the far end of the room was a cot and a crate beside it.

“Agent Hand,” said Sahir, “are you clear?”

“All clear. There’s nothing here, Sahir.”

“Victoria, I’m sorry.”

“This isn’t over.”

She walked quickly across the room. There was a plate on the crate, one of those enamelled tin camping plates; a couple of chicken bones lay on it. The cot had an olive drab blanket and no pillow. She was about to turn and walk away when her phone rang.

“I was doing everything you asked. Playing by your rules,” she said.

“You truly were,” said Vague German Accent, “and I appreciate your professionalism. However, I decided that it would be more prudent to detain your friend until we had secured the release of Chabat. You have a certain reputation after all.”

“This wasn’t the deal.”

“The deal has changed, Ms. Hand.”

“Victoria!” she heard Grace shouting through the phone.

“Let me speak to her.”

“That will be fine. I’d like to keep things civil between us.”

She wished she knew what he looked like so she could more easily picture her boot smashing his face in.

“Victoria!”

“Sweetie, are you okay?”

“I -- I’m fine. I left my book behind. I finished it, and you should really read it, Victoria. Please for me.”

“So I still require the location of Chabat, Ms. Hand,” Vague German Accent had taken the phone back.

“How do I know I can trust you this time?”

“You cannot, of course, but you have little option. The location, Ms. Hand, and once we’ve secured Chabat, we will release Grace to you.”

“What if your men botch the prison break?”

“Let us hope that doesn’t happen. For the sake of all the stakeholders.”

Victoria chewed on her lip, knelt down and peeled back the blanket. Grace’s copy of Catch-22 sat there. She picked it up and thumbed through it, holding her mobile phone between her cheek and shoulder.

“I’ll tell you the location.”

 

“She dog-eared the pages.” 

Sahir looked up from dismantling the barrel of the rifle.

“Grace doesn’t bend the corners of her books.”

No bent corners, no cracked spines. Victoria had once creased the cover of one of Grace’s books, stuffing it carelessly into her bag. It had taken dinner, expensive wine and a very vigorous apology before Grace had forgiven her.

“She lent it to one of the kidnapper’s?”

Victoria shook her head.

“Two corners bent. One unbent, one bent,” Victoria counted pages. “Eight more untouched. Two more folded.”

“Think there’s a pattern?”

“Bent, unbent.”

“Binary.”

Victoria’s mouth turned into a smile.

“Not binary. Morse code.”

Sahir shook his head. “Who uses Morse code anymore?”

“Someone who reads a lot of spy novels.”

Victoria sat down on the floor with her notepad and pen. She tapped her chin with the pen for a moment and then wrote down the sequence of folded and unfolded corners.

“What does it say?”

“It’s going to take me a minute. My signal ops courses were a very long time ago.”

A few minutes later, she looked up at Sahir. “The Marriott Downtown.”

“She overhead where they were going to take her.”

Victoria whipped out her phone. “It’s Hand. Coulson, there’s going to be an attempted prison break in Addis Ababa. I don’t think SHIELD has a pony in this race but it would make me personally very happy if one Alain Chabat stayed right where he is.”

She hung up and looked at Sahir. “Finished packing. We’ve got work to do.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thrilling conclusion!

“I’ve been looking at the check-ins over the last three days. But it’s a hotel. There’s been dozens.”

Sahir was at the desk working on the laptop and Victoria was at the window, staring at the Marriott across the street. Her gaze flitted to any movement in the other hotel. A shadow across a window, a curtain being opened. Hand continued to stare, arms crossed.

“Which rooms have had the most room service orders. Two meals a day at least.”

Sahir tapped on the laptop, stopping occasionally for a sip of his tea. Hand’s tumbler of scotch had been left untouched after an initial few gulps.

“There are seven rooms that would meet that criteria. It’s handy having SHIELD backdoor access into almost any computer system.”

“Mmm.”

“There’s only decent sniper coverage from for one of them. I could check the other surrounding hotels for a better vantage. This one is a little sub-par for my tastes anyway.”

“Oh no,” Hand said, “You’ll be going in with me. We’re going to have to sweep room to room.”

“Agent Hand, might this be the time to perhaps bring in your SHIELD compatriots? They could lock down the hotel and--”

That pulled Hand away from staring at the Marriott.

“No!” She spun to face Sahir. “I want this done without a shot fired if possible. I’m not risking her, Sahir. She’s not even going to break a nail. This -- this isn’t her life. She should never have got mixed up in any of it. It’s more danger than you agreed to, I know.”

“Oh so this is why you paid me only twenty-five percent in advance.”

“Sahir, if you--”

He smiled and held up his hands. “Do not insult me by finishing that. Let’s go and get her back.”

Victoria hand smiled for the first time in days.

 

Sahir walked out of the Marriott’s main doors and then crossed the street to the coffee shop Hand had relocated to.   
“Ah, the wig covers your hair nicely. Not much to be done about your height unfortunately.”

She stood up from her table as if to make the point. She was a few inches taller than Sahir, even in flats.

They walked out of the coffee shop and Victoria linked her arm with Sahir’s.

“I just need to be a little nondescript. This isn’t deep cover. Did you spot any security?”

They strolled down the sidewalk, Sahir casting his gaze at the tall buildings.

“One obvious. He’s in a dark blue suit. Bald, earring in each lobe. Heavyset. On the lookout definitely but we don’t know for who--”

“We’re taking him out. I’m not leaving things to chance.”

Sahir nodded and pointed randomly to a street performer down the block. They crossed the street and entered the Marriott. Hand spotted the sentry -- if he was one -- right away, sitting in an overstuffed leather chair. A drink at beside him on an end table. He had his hands on his knees and sat almost perfectly still while. A goatee surrounded his frown.

“Not a pro,” Hand muttered, “Hired muscle, probably local.”

“How shall we play this?” Sahir asked.

“I’ll get his attention.”

Hand stopped walking and looked around the lobby. Busy, well lit, and dwarf trees in gigantic pots. She reached inside her jacket and took out her mobile phone, pretending to check something on it. She made sure to brush the coat far enough open to briefly expose her sidearm in its holster before letting it fall closed again.

“He noticed,” Sahir said.

Hand dropped her phone into her pocket and began walking quickly away. Sahir followed and a moment later the man lifted himself out of the chair and began to walk as well. Victoria caught a glimpse of him in a bronze replica of an ancient Greek shield.

She paused briefly to make sure the man had enough time to catch up a little before pushing on the door to a service corridor. When the door opened behind them, Agent Hand spun smoothly around and dropped to one knee and fired her gun. The silenced weapon made a soft pop.

The man cried out slumped against the wall, dropping his own handgun. Sahir closed the distance between them, kicked the gun further away and shoved the man to the floor. While pinning him to the ground with one knee, Sahir pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and stuffed it into the man’s mouth.

Hand walked over and aimed the gun downward.

“I’m willing to not shoot you again because I believe you’re hired help. But on my last employee review it was mentioned that I am not as patient as I could be.”

Sahir pulled the cloth out.

“You fucking bitch I--”

Sahir stuffed the cloth back in and Victoria fired the weapon into his right arm. The man struggled and flailed for a moment. His eyes widened and he stopped struggling. Sahir removed the cloth once more.

“Which room?”

He bite his lip and Hand took aim.

“Which. Room?”

 

There was another guard outside room. Sahir walked down the hallway, pulling a suitcase on rollers -- borrowed from the lobby -- and as he passed by shot out his left elbow, catching him in the head. He turned and stopped the guard from falling, his hands in the other man’s armpits. He lowered him to the ground. Before he had a chance to stand up, Victoria had come around the corner and kicked open the door to the hotel room.

“Vic!”

Grace was sitting on the end of the bed, hands in her lap, tied together. She wore a tanktop and the workout pants she had on when she was taken. A man swore and lurched across the room toward her. Hand fired twice but missed. She tracked him with her gun but didn’t fire again as he closed n in on Grace and hauled her to her feet in front of him.

He had his own weapon pointed at her temple and held her in front of him, his head behind hers.

“You couldn’t just let us finish the job,” the vague German accent, only this time harsh, angry. “We would have given her back.”

“You broke the deal. You would have kept breaking the deal.”

“Vic!” Grace sobbed. Her darker skin contrasted with the man’s white shirt.

“Put the gun down hand. I will kill her.”

Hand kept her gun steady, unquavering at the other two. She heard Sahir enter the room behind her.

“I will kill her!”

“Grace, listen to me. It’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay.”

“I will kill her. Do you think I am fucking with you?”

Grace sobbed again.

“If you kill her, what reason do I have to keep you alive. You’re pointing your gun at the wrong person.”

Vague German Accent was now sweating profusely. He began to back away, toward the balcony doors, breathing heavily. Grace had scrunched her eyes up tight.

“You can drop your gun,” Hand said, “and end this right now. We can all walk away from this”

“Fuck you!” the accented man shouted but he moved the gun to point toward Victoria Hand. As soon as the barrel was away from Grace’s head, Hand saw her raise her fists and jam them backward into her captor’s thigh. A fork fell out of her hands.

Vague German Accent shouted and swore. They both staggered back and Grace slammed her head back into his face. His grip loosened and Grace dropped her weight slipping out of his arm. Hand fired twice, threw her gun to the floor and dashed across the room to catch her lover in her arms.

“Grace,” she said and leaned her head down to kiss the top of Grace’s head.

“You found my book? I bent the pages.”

“We’ll get you new copy. I love you, Grace. That was a good trick with the fork.”

“Something I read. I slipped the fork into my waistband when he wasn’t looking. I love you, Vic. You found me.”

“Always. And you showed me the way.”

Victoria kissed her again. She would hold Grace for another moment and then deal with the mess.


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tying up a loose end

Victoria walked into Tom’s office and closed the door behind. She leaned up against the closed door, brushed back some red-streaked hair and pursed her lips.

Tom glanced up from the magazine he was reading and yanked his sneakers off his desk, knocking a take-out container to the ground.

“Agent Hand -- ma’am, I--” he started trying to tidy his workspace.

“You were the only one who knew.”

“What? I’m sorry I wasn’t expecting visitors to my office. No one comes to my office.”

“Cut the bullshit, Tom. You set up my person secure communications channel. So I could safely talk to Grace when I was on missions. Aside from the other level eights, you were the only one who knew about her.”

Tom froze, a pile of papers in his hands.

Hand pulled a pair of gloves from out of her jacket pockets and pulled them on.

“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”

“Well not here. Not in the office. I’m more discreet than that.”

“You don’t know what they have on me they--”

“As I would even care why you did it.”

She pushed herself away from the door and began to walk across the room.

**Author's Note:**

> I really liked Victoria Hand in Agents of SHIELD and there was entirely not enough of her, so this. I have to admit that I didn't research the canonical Hand from the comics; we had so few details about her in Agents that it would be nice to just come at it from more or less a blank slate.


End file.
